Changbai Mountains
The Changbai Mountain Range is a mountain range on the border between China and North Korea. It is referred to as the Šanggiyan, Jangbaek, or Ohnan mountains, the range extends from the Northeast Chinese provinces of Heilongjiang and Liaoning to the North Korean provinces of Ryanggang and Chagang. Most peaks exceed 2,000 metres in height, with the highest mountain being Paektu Mountain. The range represents the mythical birthplace of Bukūri Yongšon, ancestor of Nurhaci and the Aisin Gioro imperial family, who were the founders of the Manchu state, the Chinese name literally means Perpetually-White Mountain Region. The mountains are the source of the Songhua and Yalu Rivers, the Changbai Mountains are characterized by long and cold winters. Precipitation is low in the winter but higher in the summer, the vegetation of the mountain slopes is divided into several different zones. At the top, above 2000 metres, tundra predominates, from 1700 to 2000 metres, vegetation is dominated by mountain birch and larch.
Below this zone, and down to 1100 metres, the dominant trees are spruce, from 600 to 1100 metres, the landscape is dominated by mixed forest, consisting of Amur linden, Korean pine and elm. Further down, a hardwood forest is found, dominated by second-growth poplar. Longwanqun National Forest Park Baekdu Mountain Changbai Waterfall List of mountains in Korea Baekdu mountain at changbaimountain. com
Andong Province
Andong / Antung, or Liaodong was a former province in Northeast China, located in what is now part of Liaoning and Jilin provinces. It was bordered on the southeast by the Yalu River, which separated it from Korea, the name of the province Antung in Chinese means pacify the east and was likely inspired by the Protectorate General to Pacify the East established during the Tang Dynasty. Antung was further sub-divided in 1939 into Antung Province and Tonghua Province, after the annexation of Manchukuo by the Republic of China after the end of World War II, the Kuomintang reunited Antung and Tonghua, and continued to recognize the area as Antung Province. The capital of Antung Province from 1934-1939 was Tonghua, the area of the province was. List of administrative divisions of Manchukuo Map showing the location of Andong within the territories of the ROC map of the Andong Province of Manchukuo
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, is a state in East Asia. Neighbours include China to the west, Japan to the northeast, Taiwan is the most populous state that is not a member of the United Nations, and the one with the largest economy. The island of Taiwan, known as Formosa, was inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before the 17th century. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed by the Qing dynasty, the Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty, following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROCs loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, in the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization, creating a stable industrial economy.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, it changed from a one-party military dictatorship dominated by the Kuomintang to a multi-party democracy with universal suffrage, Taiwan is the 22nd-largest economy in the world, and its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. It is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, health care, public education, economic freedom, the PRC has consistently claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted the ROC is no longer in legitimate existence. Under its One-China Policy the PRC refused diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the ROC, the PRC has threatened the use of military force in response to any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan or if PRC leaders decide that peaceful unification is no longer possible. There are various names for the island of Taiwan in use today, the former name Formosa dates from 1542, when Portuguese sailors sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means beautiful island.
The name Formosa eventually replaced all others in European literature and was in use in English in the early 20th century. This name was adopted into the Chinese vernacular as the name of the sandbar. The modern word Taiwan is derived from this usage, which is seen in forms in Chinese historical records. Use of the current Chinese name was formalized as early as 1684 with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture, through its rapid development, the entire Formosan mainland eventually became known as Taiwan. The official name of the state is the Republic of China and it was a member of the United Nations representing China until 1971, when it lost its seat to the Peoples Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become known as Taiwan. In some contexts, especially ones from the ROC government
Treaty of Shimonoseki
The Treaty of Shimonoseki was a treaty signed at the Shunpanrō hall, Japan on April 17,1895, between the Empire of Japan and the Qing Empire, ending the First Sino-Japanese War. The peace conference took place from March 20 to April 17,1895 and this treaty followed and superseded the Sino-Japanese Friendship and Trade Treaty of 1871. Article 4, China agrees to pay to Japan as a war indemnity the sum of 200,000,000 Kuping taels, Article 5, China opens Shashih, Chungking and Hangchow to Japan. Moreover, China is to grant Japan most favoured nation status for foreign trade, the treaty ended the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 as a clear victory for Japan. In this treaty, China recognized the independence of Korea and renounced any claims to that country and it ceded the Liaodong Peninsula, and the islands of Formosa and Penghu to Japan. This commercial treaty confirmed the opening of ports and rivers to Japanese trade. As a result of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, China recognized the full and complete independence, in the next year Yeongeunmun was demolished leaving its two stone pillars.
Qing Chinas indemnity to Japan of 200 million silver kuping taels, after the Triple intervention, they paid another 30 million taels for a total of over 276,000,000 troy ounces silver, worth about $5 billion US Dollars in 2015. Moreover, Mutsu had already noticed its importance in order to expand Japanese military power towards South China and it was time of imperialism so that Japan wished to follow what the West was doing. Therefore, even though the Qing had lost wars against Britain and France in the 19th century, the Qing Emperor was serious to keep Taiwan under its rule, on 20 March 1895, at Shunpanrō in Shimonoseki in Japan, 1-month-long peace conference had started. At the first half of the conference, Ito and Li talked mainly about an agreement, and during the second half of the conference. Li Hongzhang refused on the grounds that Taiwan had never been a battlefield during the first Sino-Japanese War between 1894 and 1895, as Taiwan had been a province since 1885, Li stated, Taiwan is already a province, and therefore not to be given away.
However, Imperial Japan was too strong for the Qing Dynasty to cope with, on 17 April 1895, the peace treaty between Imperial Japan and the Qing Dynasty had been signed and was followed by the successful Japanese invasion of Taiwan. This had a impact on Taiwan, the turning over of the island to Imperial Japan marking the end of 200 years of Qing rule despite an attempt by Qing loyalists to prevent the annexation. The treaty was drafted with John W. Foster, former American Secretary of State and it was signed by Count Itō Hirobumi and Viscount Mutsu Munemitsu for the Emperor of Japan and Li Hongzhang and Li Jingfang on behalf of the Emperor of China. Before the treaty was signed, Li Hongzhang was attacked by a right-wing Japanese extremist on March 24, he was fired at, the public outcry aroused by the assassination attempt caused the Japanese to temper their demands and agree to a temporary armistice. The conference was adjourned and resumed on April 10. They demanded that Japan withdraw its claim on the Liaodong peninsula, concerned that Lüshun, called Port Arthur by Westerners, would fall under Japanese control
Balhae
Balhae, called Bóhǎi in Chinese, was a kingdom in present-day northern Korea, areas of Chinas Northeast, and Russias Maritime Province. Balhae was established under the name Jin by former Goguryeo general Dae Jo-yeong in 698 after his defeat of the Tang China at Tianmenling, Balhaes original capital was at Dongmo Mountain in modern Dunhua, Jilin Province. In 742 it was moved to the Central Capital in Helong and it was moved to the Northern Capital in Ningan, Heilongjiang in 755, to the Eastern Capital in Hunchun, Jilin in 785, and back to the Northern Capital in 794. According to a Chinese source, the kingdom had 100,000 households, archaeological evidence suggests that the Balhae culture was an amalgamation of Chinese and indigenous cultures. Korean scholars consider Balhae as the part of the North–South States Period of Korean history, Balhae was founded in 698 under the name Jin or Zhen. Jin is the modern Revised Romanization of Korean 진, the same as the earlier Jin state, the former states character referred to the 5th earthly branch of the Chinese and Korean zodiacs, a division of the orbit of Jupiter identified with the dragon.
This was associated with a bearing of 120° but with the period between 7 and 9 am, leading it to be associated with dawn and the direction east. The latter states name may have simply been a variant transcription of this or may have intended the characters meaning of thunderclap, tremor. In 713, the Tang dynasty bestowed the title Head of Bohai Commandery to the ruler of Jin, in 762 the Tang dynasty of China recognized it a kingdom and renamed it Bohai. The earliest extant recorded mention of Balhae comes from the Old Book of Tang, southern Manchuria and northern Korea were previously the territory of Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. Goguryeo fell to the forces of Silla and the Tang dynasty in 668. The Tang annexed much of western Manchuria, while Silla unified the Korean peninsula south of the Taedong River, after Dae Jungsang’s death, his son, Dae Jo-yeong, a former Goguryeo general succeeded his father. Geolsa Biu died in battle against the Tang army led by the general Li Kaigu, Dae jo Yeong managed to escape outside of the Tang controlled territory with the remaining Goguryeo and Mohe soldiers.
He successfully defeated an army sent by Wu Zetian at the Battle of Tianmenling. Which enabled him to establish the state of Balhae in the region of Yilou as King Go. The second King Mu, who felt encircled by Tang and Black Water Mohe along the Amur River, attacked Tang with his navy in 732 and killed a Tang prefect based on the Shandong Peninsula. In the same time, the king led troops taking land routes to Madushan in the vincity of the Shanhai Pass and he sent a mission to Japan in 728 to threaten Silla from the southeast. Balhae kept diplomatic and commercial contacts with Japan until the end of the kingdom, Balhae dispatched envoys to Japan 34 times, while Japan sent envoys to Balhae 13 times
Kwantung Leased Territory
The Kwantung Leased Territory was a territory in the southern part of the Liaodong Peninsula in the Republic of China that existed from 1898 to 1945. It was one of the territorial concessions that the Qing Dynasty was compelled to award to foreign countries at the end of the 19th century. The territory included the militarily and economically significant ports of Lüshunkou, the name Kwantung, or Guāndōng in pinyin, means east of Shanhai Pass, a reference to part of Qinhuangdao in todays Hebei province, at the eastern end of the Great Wall of China. The name originally referred to all of Manchuria but came to be used more narrowly for the area of the leased territory, in Japanese it is pronounced Kantō and it is often referred to a s Kantō-shū to avoid confusion with the Kantō region surrounding the capital Tokyo. In Qing dynasty China, the Liaodong Peninsula was administratively part of Liaoning Province, in 1882, the Beiyang Fleet established a naval base and coaling station at Lüshunkou near the southern end of the peninsula.
However, within weeks, Germany and Russia pressured Japan to cede the territory back to China, in what was called the Triple Intervention. In December 1897, Russian naval vessels entered Lüshunkou harbor, which began to use as a forward base of operations for patrols off of northern China, Korea. The Russian Empire renamed the harbor Port Arthur, in March 1898 Russia formally leased the region for 25 years from China. The peninsula north of the lease was made a territory in which China agreed not to offer concessions to other countries. In 1899, Russia founded the town of Dalniy, just north of the base at Port Arthur. This would become the city of Dalian, in 1898 Russia began building a railroad north from Port Arthur to link Dalniy with the Chinese Eastern Railway at Harbin, this spur line was the South Manchurian Railway. Under the Portsmouth Treaty resulting from the Russo-Japanese War, Japan replaced Russia as leaseholder, Port Arthur was renamed Ryojun, and Dalniy was renamed Dairen. Japan obtained extraterritorial rights in the north of the territory adjacent to the 885 kilometres South Manchurian Railway in 1905.
These rights, along with the railway and several lines were passed to the corporation known as the South Manchurian Railway Company. Japan established the Kwantung Governor-general to administer the new territory, and based the Kwantung Garrison to defend it, the Kwantung Garrison became the Kwantung Army, which played an instrumental role in the founding of Manchukuo. In negotiations with the Republic of China under the Twenty-One Demands, after the foundation of Japanese-controlled Manchukuo in 1932, Japan regarded the sovereignty of the leased territory as transferred from China to Manchukuo. A new lease agreement was contracted between Japan and the government of Manchukuo, and Japan transferred the South Manchurian Railway Zone to Manchukuo. However, Japan retained the Kwantung Leased Territory as a territory apart from the nominally-independent Manchukuo until its surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, after World War II, the Soviet Union occupied the territory and the Soviet Navy made use of the Ryojun Naval Base
Xianbei
The Xianbei were proto-Mongols residing in what became todays eastern Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Northeast China. Along with the Xiongnu, they were one of the nomadic groups in northern China during the Han Dynasty. They eventually established their own dynasties, including the Northern Wei founded in the 4th century AD by the Tuoba clan. It is generally accepted that the Xianbei spoke a related to the Mongolic languages. Claus Schönig writes, The Xianbei derived from the context of the Donghu, Later branches and descendants of the Xianbei include the Tabghach and Khitan, who seem to have been linguistically Para-Mongolic. Opinions differ widely as to what the impact of the Xianbei period was. Chinese historical texts unequivocally state that the Xianbei were descendants of the Donghu, the Xianbei were a northern or northeastern Asian population according to modern Chinese and Russian anthropologists. After the Donghu were defeated by Modu Chanyu around 208 BCE, the Book of the Later Han says that “the language and culture of the Xianbei are the same as the Wuhuan”.
The Records of the Three Kingdoms say, Tanshihuai of the Xianbei divided his territory into three sections, the eastern, the middle and the western, from the You Beiping to the Liao River, connecting the Fuyu and Mo to the east, it was the eastern section. There were more than twenty counties, the darens were called Mijia, Queji and Huaitou. From the You Beiping to Shanggu to the west, it was the middle section, there were more than ten counties. The darens of this section were called Kezui, Murong, from Shanggu to Dunhuang, connecting the Wusun to the west, it was the western section. There were more than twenty counties, the darens were called Zhijian Luoluo, Rilü Tuiyan, Yanliyou, et al. These chiefs were all subordinate to Tanshihuai, … Refined metals and wrought iron have come into the possession of the rebels. Han deserters seek refuge and serve as their advisers and their weapons are sharper and their horses are faster than those of the Xiong-nu. But in so doing they are bent on gaining precious Chinese goods.
As soon as they all they possibly can, they turn in their tracks to start wreaking damage. Around A. D.155, the northern Xiongnu were crushed and subjugated by the Xianbei and their chief, known by the Chinese as Tan-shih-huai, advanced upon and defeated the Wusun of the Ili by A. D.166
Simplified Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters.
Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants.
However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished.
Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
Pinyin
Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese.
One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal.
Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China – known as the Empire of the Great Ming – for 276 years following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming, described by some as one of the greatest eras of orderly government, although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, regimes loyal to the Ming throne – collectively called the Southern Ming – survived until 1683. He rewarded his supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. One, Zheng He, led seven enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia, the rise of new emperors and new factions diminished such extravagances, the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor during the 1449 Tumu Crisis ended them completely. The imperial navy was allowed to fall into disrepair while forced labor constructed the Liaodong palisade, haijin laws intended to protect the coasts from Japanese pirates instead turned many into smugglers and pirates themselves.
The growth of Portuguese and Dutch trade created new demand for Chinese products and produced an influx of Japanese. This abundance of specie remonetized the Ming economy, whose money had suffered repeated hyperinflation and was no longer trusted. While traditional Confucians opposed such a prominent role for commerce and the newly rich it created, combined with crop failure and epidemic, the dynasty collapsed before the rebel leader Li Zicheng, who was defeated by the Manchu-led Eight Banner armies who founded the Qing dynasty. The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty ruled before the establishment of the Ming dynasty, consequently and the economy were in shambles, and rebellion broke out among the hundreds of thousands of peasants called upon to work on repairing the dykes of the Yellow River. A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, including the Red Turbans in 1351, the Red Turbans were affiliated with the White Lotus, a Buddhist secret society. Zhu Yuanzhang was a peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352.
In 1356, Zhus rebel force captured the city of Nanjing, with the Yuan dynasty crumbling, competing rebel groups began fighting for control of the country and thus the right to establish a new dynasty. In 1363, Zhu Yuanzhang eliminated his archrival and leader of the rebel Han faction, Chen Youliang, in the Battle of Lake Poyang, arguably the largest naval battle in history. Known for its ambitious use of ships, Zhus force of 200,000 Ming sailors were able to defeat a Han rebel force over triple their size, claimed to be 650. The victory destroyed the last opposing rebel faction, leaving Zhu Yuanzhang in uncontested control of the bountiful Yangtze River Valley, Zhu Yuanzhang took Hongwu, or Vastly Martial, as his era name. Hongwu made an effort to rebuild state infrastructure. He built a 48 km long wall around Nanjing, as well as new palaces, Hongwu organized a military system known as the weisuo, which was similar to the fubing system of the Tang dynasty. With a growing suspicion of his ministers and subjects, Hongwu established the Jinyiwei, some 100,000 people were executed in a series of purges during his rule
